Star comment: Balancing act needed on parking
Since 2014, over £1 million has been extracted from the pockets of motorists in the county, and transferred to the coffers of Shropshire Council.
As this is the figure for parking fines, it is only a tip of the iceberg, to which must be added all the fees through parking charges which are flowing the council's way.
And serves them all right, a lot of people will say. Stay over time, and you pay the fine. Since 2014 the council has given almost 38,000 fine tickets.
The fines blackspot is the Listley Street car park in Bridgnorth, where the single greatest number of fines are issued.
So the parking enforcement teams are pretty hot and, even if almost a third of fines are overturned on appeal, there is a good flow of cash coming to the council at a time when it needs it even more than ever.
Incidentally, over at Telford & Wrekin, where there are fewer charging council car parks, the council has collected a relatively paltry £61,128 since April 2013, made up of 2,745 parking fines.
Why are so many motorists outstaying their welcome in Shropshire towns? It would be nice to think that they have a lot to offer and much to do, so nobody is in a rush to get away.
However, the number of fines issued in the Shropshire Council patch is so large that the possibility that there is something wrong or unfair about the way the regime operates has to be considered too. If you give people no time to do anything, there will inevitably be those who lose track of time and dash back to their car to find they have made an expensive mistake.
Parking fines are a method of management and regulation, and without them there is the risk of something approaching chaos. As in so much, there is a balance between maintaining parking order, which generally helps traders and in some cases promotes a safer traffic environment, and cracking down so hard on motorists that they are made to feel unwelcome, which can hardly be good for local trade.
A parking ticket which a motorist feels to be unjust and officious can prove to be the last straw, and they vow never to return.
The onus of responsibility does of course lie on drivers to pay the right money, park correctly, and keep track of time. With a parking fine which is a "fair cop," they will blame themselves and pay up. But if they feel they are on the end of a council-sponsored mugging, the bitterness and resentment runs deep.
